Haunted London.

Date:
[1860?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Haunted London. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Cavcndisli, 'wlio ivas waiting below to take leave of Lira, tenderly embraced bim; he w’as one of those friends Avho had offered to assist his escape. After parting, Russell turned back to entreat his^friend to ajDplj' himself moi’e to religion, telling him .at that moment what sui^port and con- solation it gave him. Then he mounted the coach, Burnet and Tillotson with him. lii a low voice, as they passed through the now weeping, now mocking crowd, Russell sang to himself the beginning of the hundred and nine- teenth Psalm, saying he hopied soon he should sing better; “ soon,” too, he said, looking at the banks of human beings the coach ploughed through, “ I shall .see a better assembly.” On reaching the Scpiare, he walked four or five times round the black scaffold, eyeing the hushed people; then he turned to the sheriffs and read his paper. He then prayed with Tillotson and Burnet, and undressing himself, calmly laid down his head on the block. It fell after two strong strokes. Bur- net, who watched him as the executioner touched his neck with the axe, in order to take surer aim, was sure the brave man did not tremble. It was as a conspirator in “ the Rye House Plot” that Russell was murdered. All that his enemies could jDrove was, that he had been duped by that intriguing villain and debauchee, Loid Shaftesbury, into attending a partisan meeting at the house of one Shepherd, a wdne merchant. With the after-i^lot, to intercept the king’s coach on his return from Newmarket, and as it passed across a maltster’s lonely farm in Hertfordshire, he had nothing to do. But on the blue fog nights afore mentioned, this headless ghost of the portly, good-hearted, ljut not very strong-brained Whig jDa-triot is not the only one I meet; for now it is Hogarth, the great satirical painter, going to jDaiut “ Paul before Felix,” one of his great sacred failures, in Lincoln’s Inn Hall; now it is that ingenious crotchetty architect Su’ John Soame, w’ho collected jjictures and nick- nacks all his life, and then left them to the nation, thinking everybody W'ould then l^e foi’ccd to come and admire his stone puzzle of a house, with its “ Hogarths,” its gi’eat sarcophagus, and its won- derful devices to make a small j^lace seem largo. Here he used to sit at the window, chatting about his own woi-k opposite, the College of Surgeons, which he new-fronted, clapping on an Athenian portico to three old houses. And inside this great museum of death are all the terrible monstrosities that John Hunter, that patriarch of surgeons, spent all his life collecting. There is a hydi’ocephalic skull, so large that it balances on the puny skele- ton like an ivory ball on a juggler’s rod. There, too, is Napoleon’s stomach, the mummy of a quack doctor’s wife, and the sabre-toothed tiger, happily now extinct, and other ghastly curiosities. That blue fog of a December night, “punctuated” here and there with golden stars, will rise again this very evening in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and with it, to favoured eyes, will reaj)pear all the ghosts of the haunted neighbourhood : the stout man without a head, the little shrewd bull-dog painter, the fashion- able ghosts in skeleton coaches, the broken-hearted ambassador, Pepys’s sociable friend, the crotchd architect, the pompous minister; but if you rasl venture to put your hand through the blue fog ^ collar some supposed ghost, ten to one the stern i dignant voice of unimaginative policeman X 1 wdll shout, half throttled, “Now then, young man, no more of that, if please.” || “ CARS AND STAGES ” IN AMERICA. Ix America, though there arc “busses,” theyj rarely called by that name. “ Bus ” is Bi tish, and, moreovei’, supposed to be indelicate; a| “ omnibus ” is by far too long a word for such fai going people. “ Raili’oad ” is also “ slow,” ai labours under a similar objection. The wo “ car ” is therefore the substitute for every speci of convejmnce by rail, and that of “ stage” for eve public carriage on the common road. “ Waggq is a term aiiplied to all sorts of private vehicl from a farmer’s cart to the smart-going drosky which the dashing citizen sports his pair of hi| mettled bloods “ 2' 40”;’’ that is to say, animi capable of getting over a mile in that space of tin and “ sleighs ” are modes of progression betl known there than here, corresponding to the Ej lish sledges. But in many respects the Americans are ah| of the British in travelling. Their omnibusses l surpass ours in point of elegance and comfort. ] stead of entering a damp, straw'-covered, ill-vej lated vehicle, as in London, you find a light, cle! w'ax-clothed or carpetted carriage, commodious a! airy, with agreeable plush or velvet cushions, a handsome frescoes or paintings between the pani in lieu of the hideous advertisements and i:ilacal that are to be found in London. The vehicle is a] more simply managed: there are no bawding “ cad or conductors ; the coachman alone, perched up his small and solitaiy seat in front, manages V At a signal you stop him on the street, and he i laxcs a long leathern strap, which passes from 1 arm along the top of the interior of the vehicle the door. So soon as you open and enter this, again pulls it tight. The belt affords you usd suppoi’t as you proceed to your seat, and it is st more serviceable to the driver, by keeping you in 1 j’ou have paid. You pass your money through small opening near him in front, and ho dejiosits or gives you change from a small box on his Ic Being reckless as any of his London compeers, ! takes the precaution of cansing you to pay on c trance, lest what is termed a “ spill ” should occi that is to say, lest a wheel is whisked off and y he all pitched on one side. By a pull on the str; you also stop him when you want to descend; o or two applications of the hand causing him - draw up on the right or left side of the road as y may desire. The “ cars,” drawn by horses on a sort of tra way, or rail, through the American towms, are | so agreeable. Properl}' conducted, they w'ould more so, as their movement is exceedingly smool but while the “ stages ” or omuibusses are rigii confined to twelve inside, there seems no limitj
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